REVIEW: Owly (Book Two)

Runton, A.  (2005).  Owly:  Just a little blue.  Marietta, GA:  Top Shelf Productions.

1891830643

125 pages


Appetizer:  This time around Owly is having trouble with a family of bluebirds who don't want to be his friends.  But once Owly and Wormy learn that the bluebirds' natural homes are being destroyed, they decide to help build the birds a new home.

Unlike the first book in the series, this volume only focuses on one story and it explores the experience of having a kind gesture being rejected.

This may seem like a dumb and obvious statement since all of the main characters are woodland creatures, but I love how environmentally oriented this series is.  These creatures aren't just allegories for the emotions and experiences of new and young readers, they're the allegories for the emotions and experiences of young readers AND they share information about nature and environmentally kind options.

It's also worth noting that a student could easily pick up any of the Owly books and read.  No knowledge of the previous books necessary (although potentially more enjoyable).



To Go with the Meal:

After sharing this book in the Owly series, students could raise funds to buy (or build) a class bird feeder or birdhouse for outside the school.  Or a teacher could encourage students to work with a family member to build their own birdhouse for outside their house or apartment.

A teacher can also discuss the themes of team work, sacrifice and forgiveness.  Since the story also shows characters working together to solve problems, a teacher can draw students' attention to the way the characters use the tools and animals around them to help find solutions.


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: Last Night

Yum, H.  (2008).  Last Night.  New York:  Farrar Straus Giroux.

0374343586


Appetizer:  In this wordless picturebook, after dinner, a young girl goes to sleep.  Her teddy bear transforms into a real bear who leads her on an adventure through the woods.

The illustrations are highly stylized, done with linocut.  I felt the illustrations were almost too stylized since the details cab be hard to make out on some of the pages.  Take this page for example.

What exactly is going on here?  Are there just multiple moons in the sky, throwing off the angle of the various animals' shadows?  Are they rolling in the grass?  Has some crazy alien struck them down?  Are the girl and animals being tickled by some invisible monsters?  I can't quite tell.

But the gapped weathered look certainly does make this book stand out.  And since it may take the reader's mind a moment to make out the figures on each page, it encourages that reader to spend even more time observing the shapes and figures of the animals depicted.

I liked the sense of magic Last Night incorporates with a beloved inanimate doll turning into a real gentle bear.  It can encourage young readers to see the everyday objects around them in a new light.  That or if a child doesn't have access to this book, a reader's cousin could just inform her that bear's come to life in the night to take revenge for throwing them across the bedroom.  I haven't forgotten that you told me that story, Cousin Melissa!  That stuffed bear never came for me, but I still might come for you!!!!!


To Go with the Meal:

As with other wordless books, a teacher should encourage an emerging reader to narrate what they're seeing on each page, to make connections from page to page about what is happening.

In response to the book, a teacher could also encourage a student to recount their daydreams of adventures young kids would like to have with their imaginary friends.

To bring this book in for a lesson with older students, a teacher could have second-language learners summarize the story in the language the student is learning.  Since there is no actual text, a student is free to make their own vocabulary choices.


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: Lights Out

Geisert, A.  (2005).  Lights Out.  New York:  Houghton Mifflin Company.

0618478922

Appetizer:  A young pig is afraid of the dark and can't go to sleep without a light on.  His parents insist he must turn the light out by 8 PM, so the young pig engineers a complicated device to turn off his light on time after he has fallen asleep.

This picturebook is almost completely wordless.  Only the first page includes a lot of text.  After that, there are only a few labels here or there to read.  In terms of visual literacy, however, this book is intense.  To understand every step-all 29 of them--of the mechanisms the pig creates to delay having his night light switched off takes time to absorb and provides fun insights into cause and effect for young readers.

I liked this picturebook.  The pig's fear of the dark is very relatable for young readers and his creativeness in solving the dilemma with his parents' ultimatum is entertaining.

I also liked the style of the illustrations, which include a lot of lines to direct the reader's focus or show contrast in angles.  This book could be brought in to help students learn the distinctions among, vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines.

Activities:

This is a good book to share with young readers to encourage visual literacy.  A parent or teacher should encourage a young reader to report what they see in the illustrations about how the pig's devise works.

Lights Out would also be good to provide an example of creative problem solving and to show the amount of time and effort it can take to accomplish a goal.

This book could also be paired with playing the board game Mouse Trap.  Does anybody remember that game?  I always wanted to play that game as a child.  But I had very little patience for the actual building of the trap.  The fun part was the actual trapping. Not the building.

An art teacher could focus on the fact that instead of filling in solid colors throughout the illustrations, Geisert instead chose to draw lines to fill the space.  A teacher could connect this to dot art as well.

Although the book is concerned with going to bed, I wouldn't say it's actually a good bedtime read, since it provokes deep thinking and staring at the book's pages for minutes upon minutes upon minutes.


Quote of Note:

"My parents make me turn off the light at eight.  They know I'm afraid to go to sleep unless the light is on.  They said, "If you can figure something out--go ahead."  So I did."


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: The Lion & the Mouse

Pinkney, J.  (2009).  The Lion and the Mouse.  New York:  Little, Brown and Company.

9780316013567

Jerry's back!  And his illustrations of this retelling of one of Aesop's fable are amazing.  (Caldecott amazing?  Maaaaaaaaaaybe?  Again, I'm not a betting kinda girl)  They make the book.  (Literally!  Since the book is almost wordless)  And that may be the reason why Little, Brown and Company chose to solely have an illustration on the front cover of the book.  No text.

Don't worry though.  The mouse graces the back cover (again with no text).  Using visual literacy alone, a reader can know that this is the story of The Lion and the Mouse.  It's awesome attention to detail that when opened flat, the reader can see that the lion is looking at the mouse.  Fun!  I likes it muchly!

And all this peritext hints at the content:  A picturebook that is almost completely wordless except for the hoots, squeaks, and roars of the animals featured in the story.

The fact that the animals aren't as anthropomorphized as they often are in other retellings is fun.  Pinkney calls the choice "natural."  I thought it was a nice departure from the majority of the ways that Aesop's fables are shared--which usually feature talking animals with a clear moral at the end of each short story.

30-Second Plot Summary:  After a lion spares a mouse, the wee little mouse finds itself in a unique position to help the lion in return.

Wee-little kiddies are especially prone to liking this story, since it's the wee-little creature that *Spoiler* manages to save the big-tough lion.


Activities:

This is an excellent book to encourage visual literacy.  For the youngest of readers, a teacher can work on having children label the different types of animals featured.  For kindergartners and first graders, a teacher can encourage the students to narrate or summarize the story.  The story also lends itself to play acting, with students taking turns pretending to be the mouse, the mice babies, the lion and the humans.

For older kids, a teacher could give students access to different versions of the fable and the young readers could compare the different approaches.


Tasty Rating:  !!!!

REVIEW: Rainstorm

Lehman, B. (2007). Rainstorm. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

0618756396

In this wordless picturebook, set during a rainstorm, a young boy is stuck inside. He discovers a hidden key that unlocks a trunk...that leads to a ladder...and on and on until the boy finds himself on the top of a lighthouse, on a clear day, with several other children, ready to have a fun time together.

Rainstorm very much embraces a sense of magic bookended by the ordinary. (Of course, the fact that the boy seems to live in a giant mansion does take away from any sense that the story is ordinary) Young readers should enjoy the sense of discovery, adventure and magic. Teachers will like that it encourages enjoyment and visual literacy.

If children have read Lehman's Caldecott honoree, The Red Book, they'll discover that Rainstorm is in the same enjoyable style, but is just a little less structurally trippy.

Activities:

Rainstorm is a great book to share during a rainstorm, just when children start to complain that they're bored. After reading the book, a teacher or parent could lead children on an imaginary journey or could try to quickly create a scavenger hunt.

As with most wordless picturebooks, Rainstorm can be used to support visual literacy and to encourage students to narrate what they're seeing.

REVIEW: Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug

Newgarden, M., & Cash, M.M.  (2007).  Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug.  New York:  Harcourt, Inc.

9780152058135

Rating:  !!!

In this wordless picturebook, Bow-Wow chases a bug around the neighborhood.  As the story goes on, Bow-Wow's chase becomes more and more fantastic.

This is a good book to encourage young readers to work on developing visual literacy by having the wee little ones pay attention to the expressions on Bow-Wow and other characters' faces.

And on the off chance, a child becomes a fan of Bow-Wow, this is one book in a series of concept books.

Activities:

Aside from using Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug to have children narrate and describe the pictures they're seeing, a teacher could use this book to discuss what a child should do when faced with a bug in the house or classroom.  Another teaching moment would be to discuss making friends with other children who share similar interests.

With slightly older students--say first or second grade--a teacher could show several of the pages in this book as an example how to play the mirror game (in which two students face each other and mirror each other's gestures and expressions).  I found those pages to be particularly cute.